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Full-Text Articles in Labor Economics

Trade Union Trade-Offs: Unions, Voters, And The Rise Of Right-Wing Populism, Kim Gabbitas Sep 2017

Trade Union Trade-Offs: Unions, Voters, And The Rise Of Right-Wing Populism, Kim Gabbitas

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

Trade union membership in European Union member states has been in decline for decades, which has many concerned about the future of workers’ rights. While existing work examines the reasons for this decline, my research shifts the focus from union density to the functions unions serve and how these functions affect and are affected by changing electoral behavior. I examine the rise of right-wing populist movements in Europe and how these movements and the challenges today’s labor unions face can be traced to the same underlying forces. I argue that, as the relevance of trade unions declines for blue-collar workers, …


Disrespecting The Minimum Wage: How States Limit The Opportunity For Restaurant Workers To Support Themselves, Samantha Pereira May 2017

Disrespecting The Minimum Wage: How States Limit The Opportunity For Restaurant Workers To Support Themselves, Samantha Pereira

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

This paper examines the inequality in the restaurant industry in America. It focuses specifically on the tipped minimum wages in different states compared to the real minimum wage and looks into the gender and racial inequality present in restaurants. The first section analyzes the history of tipping and what it has become in the United States. The paper then moves to describe different struggles that tipped workers in the restaurant industry have to face. The paper also discusses different arguments to raising the tipped minimum wage and compares states with a tipped minimum wage and states without a tipped minimum …